


most days i know it's not true

by sirinial



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, Bets & Wagers, Denial of Feelings, Disabled Inquisitor, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family Dynamics, Fluff and Humor, Mages and Templars, Modern Thedas, Satinalia, Sharing a Bed, but much gentler than in canon, fake engagement specifically, the romantic comedy of my fics tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-07 07:57:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17362061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirinial/pseuds/sirinial
Summary: If Mireille Trevelyan could give one piece of advice, it would be: don't sarcastically tell your family you're engaged on Satinalia when they keep prying about your nonexistent love life. They will assume you were serious. You will not enjoy thinking about how best to explain to them that you were actually kidding. (Unless maybe you don't have to.)If Cullen Rutherford could give one piece of advice, it would be: donotget drunk and make bets on the outcome of a Scrabble game with Mireille Trevelyan. You will lose. (Almost definitely.)A fake relationship modern AU about family and how much of our lives we want to share with them, about disability and some of the differences it makes to us, and most importantly about sharing a bed and faking an engagement with someone you are absolutely without a doubtnotfond of by any means.





	1. contrivance

From: Mireille Trevelyan (mireilletyan@tmail.com)  
To: Brynn Ashton (bash915@tmail.com)  
Subject: Fwd: Holiday Plans

WHAT THE FUCK

**Begin forwarded message**

From: Max Trevelyan (maxtrevelyan@tmail.com)  
To: Mireille Trevelyan (mireilletyan@tmail.com) , Cc: Brannek Trevelyan (btrevelyan@tmail.com), Demelza Nance Trevelyan (dnt@tmail.com)  
Subject: Holiday Plans

 

Dear Mireille,

As I’m sure you know this year we’ll be celebrating Satinalia a bit longer this year, from the 21st through the 3rd of Firstfall. I know your term ends on the 26th, but you’ll only miss a few events, and the big things will be nearer the end of the week anyway, including Great-Aunt Lucille’s yearly dinner. Father insists you shouldn’t miss the holiday this year, especially not now that you’re living so far from home. Your trip’s paid for out of Hightown Station leaving at 9:16 pm on the 26th -- tickets attached. There’ll be appetizers out when you get in, since you’ll be in rather late. But that way you can be here for morning brunch on the 27th and you can catch Uncle Cam on his way out as well.

We’d really like to meet your fiance too. Father’s had a queen put in your old room for the two of you, and you can tell us all about the wedding plans, since I’m assuming you’ve made some after a year.

It’ll be good to have you back home again.

Love,

Max

 

* * *

 

 **Brynn (5:01 PM)  
** why do your parents think you’re engaged  
why do they think you want to come home for the holidays again  
a year ????  
what !!  
did you send me !! what is this nonsense

 **Mireille (5:04 PM)  
** Pretty sure that means you’ll get stiffed on rent if i don’t show up for satinalia this year  
They were pretty peeved I didn't stay longer last year

 **Brynn (5:05 PM)  
** you aren’t telling me why your parents think you’re engaged  
are you engaged??  
if you are and you didn’t tell me i’m going to be so mad

 **Mireille (5:05 PM)  
** I have NO idea  
I mean I’m not engaged! I have an idea about THAT

 **Mireille (5:12 PM)  
** Sweet Maker’s fucking BALLS  
I have an idea.  
Last year at satinalia. No one would stop asking me about my love life remember

 **Brynn (5:13 PM)  
** oh YEAH i forgot about that  
i still think they were hoping you were going to say you swore off dating completely after the whole. arden thing.  
~focusing on your studies~ or whatever

 **Mireille (5:13 PM)  
** Yeah and I WAS but it was super annoying that they kept talking about it as if i wasn’t and  
i got mad after a while  
And I said “oh yeah i’m engaged now actually I just didn’t tell anyone about it”  
To Talan  
Who apparently does not understand sarcasm! or the concept of a joke!  
And I was only there for a day anyway and I’ve been ignoring their emails, and I guess Talan told EVERYONE? Forever??

 **Brynn (5:15 PM)  
**Hahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 **Mireille (5:15 PM)  
** You are the fucking worst help me figure out how to explain to my whole family that my stepbrother doesn’t understand sarcasm and I have NOT been engaged for an entire year  
Andraste’s own ass  
I can’t wait to be the holiday disappointment again, I think this is the fifth year running

 **Brynn (5:16 PM)  
** it would be way funnier if you didn’t tell them  
just roll with it

 **Mireille (5:19 PM)  
** I mean. I should tell them  
Because they will definitely find out after a while  
Especially you know. When I show up without a fiance?  
Fiancee? Of any gender

 **Brynn (5:20 PM)  
** hmmmmmmmmmmm  
you could bring someone along???

 **Mireille (5:20 PM)  
** Absolutely not you’re basically my only friend and I could not pretend to be marrying you  
I’ve slept in the same bed as you ONCE  
And you are all elbows  
No one would ever believe I was going to marry you least of all me  
Also you would start giggling halfway through your first interaction with my family

 **Brynn (5:22 PM)  
** that’s not what i was thinking!!!  
besides i love you and would do this for you -- but i have plans in ferelden and i already booked my flights :3

 **Mireille (5:23 PM)  
** I know! With your ski girlfriend  
Have fun by the way that sounds much nicer than being with my family for a week

 **Brynn (5:23 PM)  
**you definitely have more friends than me, what about rylen

 **Mireille (5:24 PM)  
** Absolutely not  
He would treat it like a challenge to see how much he could get Talan to believe  
And then. I would kill him

 **Brynn (5:24 PM)  
**lace?? i would suggest the captain but i’m way too scared of her

 **Mireille (5:25 PM)  
** At least lace would take it seriously but she’s already gone!  
I don’t know your captain that well, is she even into women

 **Brynn (5:25 PM)  
** you don’t ACTUALLY have to like this person if you're just going to lie about being engaged !!! but regardless  
don’t worry  
i will try to figure this out

 **Mireille (5:26 PM)  
**I do not like the sound of that

 **Brynn (5:26 PM)  
**WHEN have i steered you wrong!!!

 **Mireille (5:26 PM)  
**Literally all the time!

 **Brynn (5:29 PM)  
** love you i will FIGURE THIS OUT  
oh yeah by the way. want to come over and play games on saturday night

 **Mireille (5:31 PM)  
**Are you aware that’s today

 **Brynn (5:31 PM)  
** WANT TO COME PLAY GAMES TONIGHT  
please say yes we need at least six for dorian's new game, and i have your favorite beer  
cullen will be there and you can destroy him at scrabble again

 **Mireille (5:34 PM)  
** Maker’s balls  
All right fine I’ve been studying all day anyway

 **Brynn (5:34 PM)  
** GREAT i knew the scrabble feud would get you  
see you in TWENTY MINUTES

 **Mireille (5:34 PM)  
**WHAT

 

* * *

 

From: Mia Rutherford ( miaruth@tmail.com )  
To: Cullen Rutherford ( crutherford@tmail.com )  
Subject: Satinalia

 

Thought I’d try again this year. You’re invited, as always. Nothing special this year, but Branson is bringing his new girlfriend by, and we’ll do a dinner like always. You probably won’t miss much. It’s not even supposed to snow, it’s just going to sleet. Maybe next year we can build forts again. I know Rosie’s already planning to come back from school for the whole week if she can.

We all miss you. I hope things are getting better up north. We really miss your cooking more than anything… nobody else gets Mom’s stew right. I’m sure you have work to do, though.

Love you.

 

* * *

 

“You see,” Brynn said, passing her a bottle, “beer does make everything better.”

“Shh, I’m thinking.”

Across the board Cullen had started to tap his fingers against the table, and Mireille glared at him. “I just gave you a three minute turn, you can give me a minute and a half.”

He shrugged. “If you can’t make a word, you can’t make a word.”

“Breaking out an actual game,” Rylen called, from across the room. “Pandemic, anyone who isn’t locked in a Scrabble feud?”

“I’m kind of interested in case they’re going to kill each other over it,” Bull called back, easing himself off the couch. “But sure.”

Mireille hesitated, staring at the board, and then ran her hand through her hair and picked up the fresh beer for a swig. It did not make the assemblage of letters make more sense, annoyingly.

Brynn passed Cullen a beer, too, and he accepted it with a nod. She gestured across the board with the bottle opener. “Give it up, Miri. I know that’s pointless to say to you, but I want to go on record as having told you so I can rub it in later.”

“Give me a minute.” She ran her fingers over the tiles. “I can get there.”

“Bets on Mireille,” Dorian called, from the other side of the room.

“No betting on Scrabble feuds,” she said automatically.

Cullen wrinkled his nose. “You may be losing money on this, Dorian.”

“You’re betting against me too?”

“I’m _playing_ against you,” Cullen said. “So yes.”

“This feels like payback.”

“It’s payback for the last time you beat me at Scrabble.” He sat back in the chair. “Are you going to put down a word, or are you going to learn to lose gracefully for once?”

Brynn prodded her in the leg and said, “You should take _Cullen_ with you to Ostwick.”

Mireille dropped the tile she’d been holding at the same time Cullen said, “I’m sorry, what are you talking about?”

She scooped it up and threw it at Brynn. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s a great idea.”

Cullen was staring at Brynn with a look of deep mistrust, and Mireille picked up her beer instead of another tile, because it felt like time for more of that.

Wait, _shit --_

In triumph Mireille set down several tiles and threw up her hands. “Word. There you have it.”

Cullen eyed it. “You’re missing an A, I think.”

“I am not -- oh. Meta _tar_ sal. Hm. Brynn, is that an A?”

“Just give it up, Trevelyan.” He glanced at Brynn, who was staring at Mireille with her chin in her hands and grinning, and added, “Stop making that face. That concerns me.”

“It’s not that bad an idea, and it would be _really_ funny,” Brynn said, clinking her beer against Cullen’s. “Cul, you’re not busy on Satinalia, are you?”

“I was thinking to take on a few more shifts over the week, but -- ”

“Brynn, I’m going to kill you after I kill Rutherford in this game,” Mireille said, picking up her failed tiles and rearranging them on the rack. “Give me that tile back, too. It better not be an A.”

“Pandemic,” Dorian called. “Brynn, let them feud, they won’t be done for years at this rate.”

Brynn stood up, but she elbowed Mireille in the shoulder before she left. Several times.

Cullen sighed. “You’re just prolonging the inevitable loss here, you know. What scheme is Ashton talking about this time?”

She held up a finger and took a long swig. “Something stupid, don’t worry.”

He raised his eyebrows.

It’d give her time to think of a word that had less A’s than _metatarsal,_ though, and Mireille sighed and said, “Fine. I have family in Ostwick. I’m not on great terms with them. Last year at Satinalia they were asking me about my -- my _love life,_ and I may have sarcastically told my stepbrother I was engaged, and then he stopped bothering me. Now apparently my entire family is convinced I’m engaged.”

Cullen had picked up his beer, and immediately choked on it. He coughed a few times before he managed to speak again. “That’s -- Maker’s breath. Really?”

“Brynn is under the impression it’d be funnier to run with it,” she continued, picking up her tiles. “Which it would, but I don’t exactly _have_ someone to show up with for a week, and subjecting someone to my family for a week would possibly break several international laws about torture.”

He snorted. “If they’re all as terrible as you at Scrabble, I can see why.”

Mireille set her tiles down. “There.”

“You took ten minutes to put down _salt?”_

“Look, I had to block off that triple word score somehow.”

Cullen picked up his own bottle and took a long drink before he considered his remaining tiles. “You can’t tell them you’re not engaged, I suppose?”

“I’m going to have to, aren’t I? Brynn would start laughing the first chance she gets, and she’s got plans anyway.” Mireille sat back against the couch. “That’ll be an interesting conversation to have. ‘Sorry, I made a joke and didn’t explain it for an entire year.’ Can’t wait to spend a week explaining that over and over.”

He gave her a long look, and she said, “What’re you waiting for? Play your word.”

“You just had a ten minute turn, you can give me a moment or two.”

She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him, and settled for more beer. She’d factored in time for a hangover tomorrow. It’d be fine.

Six minutes later Mireille said, “Rutherford, you are no longer allowed to make fun of me for taking forever.”

“Hush, I’m thinking.”

There was an exclamation from the table. Mireille glanced over, and then down. Yes, there was still a box of beer very close to the coffee table, which was good, because she was beginning to run out.

Cullen drained his beer and sat forward, lining up tiles on the board, then dropped back into the chair with inebriated smugness. “There.”

“Are you kidding me,” Mireille said, peering at the board.

“No shame in giving up, Trevelyan. You can’t win every game.”

“Yes I can.”

He snorted. “If you manage to win this game, I will be very impressed. You’re -- how far down now?”

“Shut up.” She pointed a finger at him. “I’m willing to bet on myself.”

Cullen leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “What are you willing to bet? Don’t say beer. The beer is free.”

“The beer is not free,” Brynn called, from the table.

“The beer is paid for.” He pulled another out, took the cap off in a businesslike motion, and held it out.

“I seem to recall,” Mireille said, taking it, “that every time you’ve tried to bet something you’ve lost miserably. That’s why we don’t play Wicked Grace with you anymore.”

Cullen pulled out a beer for himself, although his cheeks were turning red. “Don’t remind me. If you win, I’ll -- Maker, fuck it, I’ll come with you to Ostwick as your fake fiance.”

She paused, looking down at the tiles in her hand, and wiggled her fingers around them in a quick estimation. “Are you sure about that? That’s a hefty bet.”

“I really don’t think you’re going to win, to be fair,” he said, taking another sip. “Besides, your family can’t be that bad.”

“You haven’t met them.”

“I’ll take my chances.” He nodded at the board. “Again, I sincerely don’t think you’re going to win.”

“Fine. If you win, I’ll -- ” Mireille found herself chewing on her lip, and tapped her fingernails against the side of the bottle. “I’ll stop bothering you about the superglue thing.”

Cullen raised his eyebrows. “I don’t believe you.”

“It was a _puncture wound,_ my objections are entirely justified -- ” She stopped herself, and glared at him. “Besides, I suspect I’ll win.”

“I don’t believe you about that, either.”

She ran her fingers over the tiles for a second, counting a few more times to be sure. It might work.

Cullen stared at the board in dismay as she put down the last tile. Mireille sat back, grinning, as he scrubbed his hand over his face. He sat forward and stabbed a finger at the board. “How long have you had that z? _How_ did you hang onto that, Maker’s -- ”

“Thanks for pointing out that I didn’t spell metatarsal right, otherwise I would have lost.” She picked up her beer and reached over the table to clink it against his, and he glared at her the entire way. “There you go. Good game, Rutherford. What were you saying about me not winning?”

He let out a long breath and said, “Maker’s _breath._ Best two out of three.”

“You can’t change the rules just because you lose.”

“You can’t sincerely expect me to believe you didn’t just cheat. Did Ashton give you that Z?”

“I did not cheat. This time.”

“How many times have you cheated at Scrabble?”

“Not for ages, don’t worry -- ”

“No killing each other over Scrabble,” Brynn called from across the room, as Cullen leaned forward over the table.

“I can’t make any promises,” he growled.

Mireille laughed into her beer, and pointed a finger at him. “I bet I can beat you twice in a row.”

“I’ll take that bet. That’s your fourth beer, isn’t it?” He scooped up the tiles again. “Consider the glove thrown, Trevelyan.”

 

* * *

 

**(7:06 AM) Hi. It’s Rutherford.**

(7:13 AM) At arse o’clock in the morning no less

**(7:13 AM) Hung over?**

(7:14 AM) Not so bad. How’d you get my number?

**(7:15 AM) You gave it to me? While informing me of your ring size?**

(7:17 AM) …I may be more hungover than I thought I was

**(7:18 AM) You were very enthusiastic about it**

**(7:18 AM) Unfortunately**

(7:21 AM) Hey you made the bet AND you doubled down on it 

(7:21 AM) I thought you'd have learned your lesson when you lost the first game but the second one??

(7:22 AM) Is it taking advantage of you if I hold you to it? I feel like you don’t know what you’re getting into at ALL

 **(7:24 AM)** **I can’t imagine it’d be worse than a gathering with my family**

(7:27 AM) That I wouldn’t bet on

(7:27 AM) You don’t spend holidays with yours?

**(7:27 AM) Not since my parents passed**

**(7:33 AM) You said you’re due to leave Tuesday night, right? Consider it on the table. Maker knows I get not wanting to have some discussions with family, and I’m not busy.**

**(7:33 AM) And that way you won’t be tempted to hold me to something worse**

(7:34 AM) Wow

(7:34 AM) You’re a surprisingly generous person for someone without the good sense to know when and where to properly apply wound adhesives

**(7:34 AM) Nevermind, I’m leaving you to your own devices**

(7:36 AM) I won both games, I don’t have to stop referencing that wrongdoing

**(7:41 AM) I just can’t believe you told your parents you got engaged and then successfully avoided questioning about it for an entire year**

(7:43 AM) I told my STEPBROTHER first of all

(7:44 AM) How was I supposed to know he didn’t understand sarcasm!

**(7:44 AM) How old is he?**

(7:46 AM) He was 16! That’s the most sarcastic age!

**(7:46 AM) Maybe it was for you?**

(7:47 AM) Ha ha ha ha

**(7:47 AM) Maybe right now is the most sarcastic age for you**

(7:48 AM) Ha Ha Ha Ha

(7:48 AM) Look I’ve got to study and I have finals until Tuesday morning, but I’ll let you know soon, yeah?

**(7:49 AM) Fine by me. Best of luck with those**

(7:50 AM) Best of luck with your hangover

**(7:51 AM) I ran five miles this morning**

(7:51 AM) I cannot believe I’m considering fake-marrying you for a week, ugh

**(7:53 AM) I made that up, but I do usually do that**

(7:54 AM) When you’re not hungover huh

(8:11 AM) Your lack of response is telling!!

**(8:58 AM) Sorry I was running five miles**

(9:01 AM) I cannot believe you

 

* * *

 

To: Cullen Rutherford ( crutherford@tmail.com )  
From: Mireille Trevelyan ( mireilletyan@tmail.com )  
Subject: Bets

 

Rutherford -- I have train tickets leaving on the 26th. If you’re still in, meet at the station at 8:30? It’s a few hours’ trip. Can talk about details on the way down. Seven days long, so if you want to back out halfway through I’ll spot you for the train and come up with an excuse if you want. Attached a packing list too, it’s the one I used. My family is kind of formal. But I’ve never seen you in something without buttons and I know you own a peacoat so that’ll probably be fine for you. It’ll be too cold to do much at the shore but they have horses, if you like riding, and a whole lot of alcohol for free, which you’ll probably need.

If you change your mind, no hard feelings. A drunk bet’s a drunk bet. But you will definitely have to make it up to me.

Trevelyan

 

Attached: packinglist.txt

 

* * *

 

 **Cassandra (6:36 PM)  
**Cullen. Are you serious.

 **Cullen (6:37 PM)  
**It’s just a favor. I should not have agreed to play Scrabble with her, especially not drunk

 **Cassandra (6:37 PM)  
**Are you certain you haven’t read the latest Swords and Shields? This is word for word a plotline. This is. Very romantic

 **Cullen (6:37 PM)  
** It is not romantic it is a favor  
A bet  
Whatever

 **Cassandra (6:38 PM)  
** Are you certain about that? This is Mireille is it not?  
Very short? Competitive? Putting you both in a room results in arguments thick with sexual tension??

 **Cullen (6:39 PM)  
** Maker’s breath.  
You are not helping at all  
I was drunk, I should not have made a bet, end of story, goodbye, talk to you later

 **Cassandra (6:39 PM)  
** She did not give you an out?  
Your silence is telling.

 **Cullen (6:43 PM)  
**Quit that.

 **Cassandra (6:45 PM)  
**Well, then she must be a _very_ dear friend if you haven’t taken it

 **Cullen (6:46 PM)  
**How in Maker’s name did you manage to put italics into your chat

 **Cassandra (6:46 PM)  
** The dwarf showed me how. It is very useful.  
How long has it been since you spent a Satinalia at home?

 **Cullen (6:49 PM)  
** A few years, I suppose  
Why?

 **Cassandra (6:50 PM)  
** Well either this will teach you why you prefer to spend holidays by yourself, or it will make you miss your family’s in comparison  
The pressures of a noble family’s traditions are very different from those in other families, I’ve found

 **Cullen (6:52 PM)  
**Are you trying to be reassuring? You’re not succeeding at all

 **Cassandra (6:53 PM)  
**I’m trying to tell you that if Mireille is asking you to come you are likely important to her in some way, and your presence may be of comfort 

 **Cullen (6:53 PM)  
**Are you forgetting the bit where this is the result of a bet we made while drunk and she did not ask me to do anything

 **Cassandra (6:54 PM)  
**I cannot imagine someone being so competitive that they would stick to a bet of this magnitude that they made while drunk.

 **Cullen (6:55 PM)  
**You have met Mireille, correct

 **Cassandra (6:55 PM)  
** I have met you, too. Fair enough.  
Go and enjoy your holiday, Cullen. Maker knows you could use a holiday that isn’t spent alone  
I will speak to the dwarf. I’m certain he can procure something suitable.

 **Cullen (6:56 PM)  
**Enjoy your holiday with Varric

 **Cassandra (6:57 PM)  
**My holiday will be with several bottles of cognac and several good books and no dwarves in sight, thank you. Unless whoever delivers my takeaway happens to be dwarven.

 **Cullen (6:57 PM)  
** I’m sure  
You can stop typing that response now, I just wanted you to know how it feels to be accused

 **Cassandra (6:58 PM)  
** _It’s so romantic though, Cullen_

 **Cullen (7:01 PM)  
**It is not! Happy Satinalia

 

* * *

 

Cullen had picked this seat because it had a clear view of the train station’s entrance, and thus he saw Mireille quite a bit before she spotted him.

At Kirkwall Memorial she wore scrubs, just like everyone else. The only other place he saw her was at the apartment she shared with Brynn, in oversized sweatshirts and thick socks, generally sitting on the floor smirking over a game board. He hadn’t known she _owned_ a skirt. He hadn’t really been thinking about her wardrobe, honestly. Mostly he thought about trying to beat her in Scrabble or trying to argue around her, because she was _very_ annoyingly good at roping him into arguments. And Scrabble games.

Right now her ears glittered with jewelry, and the flared skirt of her dark blue coat swirled around her knees as she walked. Her boots clicked on the tile. She was wearing _lipstick,_ in a dark warm color that sharpened the line of her mouth _._ Her always brisk walk had acquired an air of authority between the shoes and the skirts and the hard clear look in her eye.

The left sleeve of her coat was pinned up to her elbow, too. That was unusual. Or was it? It was starting to strike him that he didn’t actually know Mireille particularly well beyond her competitive streak and the occasional interaction at work.

She spotted him, her eyes locking on his, and he found himself swallowing hard.

Mireille stopped in front of him and leaned her right arm on the handle of her bag. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he said, looking up at her, for once.

“Kind of thought you wouldn’t show.” Her left arm shifted and her fingers twitched on the bag’s handle, tapping her nails on the plastic.

“Drunken bets are drunken bets,” he said solemnly, which made her snort. “I don’t have anything better to do, and also, I’m not sure what else you’ll come up with in exchange if I back out.”

“Mm, that’s fair. But you might change your tune after two hours at my family’s house.” She sat down next to him, shuffling her bag over, and dug out her phone.

“I hate to tell you this after you’ve already packed, but you could, you know…not visit them.”

Mireille grimaced. “I’d like to keep paying my tuition. And my rent.”

“Fair enough.” He accepted the phone when she held it out. She’d pulled up a photo album.

“My parents,” she said, leaning over his shoulder. “Brannek is my father, the bann. The woman is my stepmother, Demelza.”

“Stepmother?”

“My mother was Orlesian, my father remarried about twenty years ago. I was young.” She swiped to the left. “My brother Max. He’s next in line for the bann’s seat. I think he’s a lawyer now, works for the Chantry. My sister Adrienne -- she used to be a Templar, but now she raises horses with her wife on a ranch up north. She and I are closest. She’ll probably think this is hilarious if we tell her about it.”

Cullen flicked through three or four pictures of a stout woman with curly brown hair and an even stouter dwarven woman he guessed must be her wife. “She reminds me of my sister.”

“You have a sister?”

“Two.” He stumbled on the word. “Ah -- one older, one younger. I -- haven’t seen them for some time.”

“Right,” Mireille said, and thankfully she didn’t press for once, just took the phone back and swiped a few times. “Ah, okay. Three younger step-siblings. Kelynen is the oldest, she just came back from a Chantry volunteering program in…I think in Orlais, then Talan -- he’s finishing his Templar training -- and Elowen, who I think does horse shows now.”

“Talan is the one who doesn’t understand sarcasm.”

“Most of the family, really.”

“Good to know.” Cullen flicked again, but now he was getting photos of small children. “Nieces? Cousins?”

“My extended family is extensive,” Mireille said, waving her hand. “Don’t worry about it. The clan’s big enough no one will expect you to have any idea who anyone is.”

Cullen drew in a breath, and she added, “You’re free to run if you want.”

“I was thinking of a rider,” he said, and her eyebrow quirked up. “You did put the superglue incident on the line, after all.”

Mireille scowled, and said, “If you’ve learned your lesson about proper adhesive use, i.e. _not_ on a puncture wound -- ”

“No, you’d have to drop it _entirely.”_

She glared at him for another minute and then stuck out her hand. “Fine. You did make a _spectacularly_ stupid bet, I suppose it’s not ridiculous to sweeten the deal for you at least a bit.”

“The lesson is probably not making bets with you,” he said, and shook her hand.

“You really shouldn’t. You’re losing a whole week to this.”

“At least you’ll stop bothering me about superglue.” She opened her mouth, then closed it with a clack, huffing through her nose. Cullen grinned and handed her back her phone. “Besides, it’d be a dull week otherwise.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see how long it takes you to think differently.” She frowned as he pulled the box out of his pocket. “I was kidding about the ring size, you know.”

“I can see why your jokes get taken too seriously, then. You’re very deadpan about them.” He passed it to her, and then realized that she had _one hand_ and it was going to be difficult and -- she opened the box one-handed, without hesitation, and set it on the arm of the seat to pull the ring out.

“Well, that’ll certainly sell it,” she said, holding it up to the light. “Maker’s balls, Rutherford.”

“It looks quite a bit more impressive than it is. A friend of a friend -- of Cassandra’s-- he’s interested in lab-created gemstones and jewelry, it seems.” He reached out, but she’d managed to get the ring onto her finger without any trouble, either. “I’m told it’s got a flaw, although I’m not sure what it is.”

She shook her hand out experimentally. “Fits pretty well.” A line had appeared between her eyebrows, and she blew out a breath that seemed slightly shaky. “All right, well, there’s that. Uh -- ”

A mechanized voice called out a boarding time, and she glanced up, distracted, drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair.

Cullen pulled his gaze away from her mouth. He really did not like her that much, he reminded himself, as he put the box in his pocket again. It wasn’t that he disliked her, per se, it was that this was the least argumentative interaction he’d ever had with Mireille Trevelyan and it was probably not going to last. You could charitably call her a friend. You could charitably call this friendly, if you ignored the fact that he’d made this bet while plastered and felt like he had to stick to it for some ridiculous reason. Because she had. To get her off his back. Whatever it was.

She rolled her shoulders back and looked back at him. “All right, well, you’ve still got time to escape. Otherwise you’ll have to jump off a moving train and that’ll be messy.”

“I’ve finally got a prayer of getting you to stop talking about the superglue argument,” Cullen said, and she wrinkled her nose. “You’re not getting rid of me.”

“There’s still time for _me_ to escape, too, you know.”

Cullen stood up and held out his hand. “Come on.”

She let him pull her to her feet, at least, which felt like a start.

 


	2. affiance

Mireille tapped her pen against her lips. And then scowled at it because she’d forgotten she was wearing lipstick, dammit. “Okay. We’ve got how we met. We’ve got, uh, first date, how long we dated, how we started, what we each do -- Do we live together?”

“It would make Brynn’s living there a bit awkward, wouldn’t it?” Cullen said, reaching up to click on the light over her seat. She hadn’t bothered about half because she couldn’t reach it, and about half because the ambient light in the train car was _almost_ enough to see by. “Hmm. Your handwriting is atrocious.”

“Shut up. Maybe she moved out and you moved in or something? My parents do have my address, so I can’t have gone far.”

“Reasonable, I suppose.”

“I think,” she said, prodding the notepad, “perhaps, we’re waiting until I finish medical school to actually get married. Financial reasons? That way we’ll avoid a lot of questions.”

“You don’t want to also plan an entire fake wedding to go with your fake engagement, Trevelyan?”

She frowned up at him. “You’re having too much fun with this.”

“Combining finances would probably wreak a bit of havoc on your tuition,” Cullen said thoughtfully, completely ignoring her. “When do you finish medical school?”

“A year and a half, if everything goes well.” Mireille tapped the pen on the page a few times. “And hopefully that’s far enough away that they won’t try to book Ostwick’s biggest Chantry for a wedding party.”

“You are aware most weddings are planned, and booked, a year or so in advance.”

She had not been. “I feel like that’s irrelevant.”

“If your family’s anything like mine -- or like you,” he added, taking the pen from her hand, “they are _extraordinarily_ nosy, and will probably want to start meddling and planning immediately regardless of your intent.” He pointed it at her. “And you will feel a bit of a tit not having made any plans despite being engaged for a year.”

“Joke’s on you,” she said, and plucked the pen out of his fingers. “I already feel a bit of a tit. They’ve thought I was engaged for a _year.”_

“Mm. That is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it?”

Mireille squinted at him and said, “I feel like you’re making fun of me.”

Cullen took the pen again, chasing her moving hand to pull it away again. “Never, Trevelyan.” The fact that he said it while smirking did not ease her suspicions. “If you like, you can tell your family we’re looking about both in Ferelden and in the Marches, and haven’t made a decision yet.”

“I’m sure they’ll love me getting married out of country.”

“Well, you won’t actually have to worry about it, if you recall.” He tugged the notepad closer and began writing what looked like a list of places. _Cliffs at Calenhad, The Heartlands, Hafter’s Rest._ “Preparation is always helpful.”

“Why do you know all these names?” Mireille asked.

“My older sister got married several years ago.” The pen stuttered for a moment, and he crossed out the mess and rewrote _Luthias Lakehouse._ “She copied me on most of the emails, probably in an effort to make sure I would be there.”

She cocked her head, but Cullen wasn’t looking at her, focused enough that there was a line between his eyebrows. He continued, “If you want your family to _believe_ you’re engaged, you might need some specificity. And it’s likely you’d have given it some thought if you were actually engaged to be married.”

“If we want my family to _believe_ I’m engaged then -- ” Mireille paused, and then took the pen from him halfway through whatever he was writing and scribbled _proposal._ Then underlined it twice. “How did you propose?”

Cullen gave her a look and said, “Are you sure you didn’t propose?”

“Yes, because I have the engagement ring. I was going to pass off not having one as it being a left-handed item, by the way, but now that you’ve taken care of that, I suspect you were the propose…er. Proposer.” She fiddled with the pen for a minute. “Maybe the shore?”

“Outside Kirkwall? Not precisely a romantic location.”

“This engagement is _fake.”_

“Specificity,” he said, and Mireille rolled her eyes and tugged the notepad back towards herself. He waved a hand. “Pick your favorite shoreline, then. Or -- how do you feel about mountains?”

“No.” Cullen raised his eyebrows when she said it. Her tone had been too sharp, probably. She shifted, trying to resist the urge to cover her left elbow, or what was left of it. “I -- they won’t believe I went up a mountain, even to get engaged.”

His gaze flicked down (and that was the _point_ of not wearing the prosthetic, not hiding it, not letting her family pretend it’d never happened like usual, making it impossible to gloss over, she’d just somehow forgotten it would also make other people uncomfortable including, apparently, _herself_ ) and Cullen said, “All right, fair enough. Perhaps we -- took a trip. The Waking Sea? Lake Calenhad? The north end of the lake is warm most of the year, and there’s campgrounds. Cabins. No mountains, either. I spent a good deal of my childhood in the lakes around Calenhad. We went last fall, perhaps, that would suit your timeline. Waited until sunset, rowed out a boat.”

She blinked at him, and he went pink again and said, “Does it sound more believable that way?”

Mireille nodded, and he took the pen from her unresisting fingers and started to write.

Her left elbow was aching again.

“Your handwriting’s not particularly good either,” she said absently, twisting the ring around with her thumb. 

“At least it’s legible,” Cullen said, and flipped the page. “What else? Proposal, wedding plans. Wedding date, approximately. What do you intend to do after you graduate?”

Mireille blinked. “Is that important?”

He shrugged. “Presumably we’ve been _engaged_ for a year, so I should think we’d know what our respective future plans are.”

“Fine, all right.” She took the pen again and recited, “I’m in surgical residency right now, so my hope is that between that and the research I’ve been doing with Professor de Fer I’ll be able to get someone to create a position combining -- combining creation-based magical healing techniques with traditional surgery, in traumatic injuries, or maybe working with long-term therapies because she has some ideas about the application of some Creation theorems on systemic and lasting effects from -- ” He’d adopted a look of mild confusion, shading into concern as his gaze flicked down to her arm, and she shook her head firmly and underlined _surgical residency_ a couple of times. “Well, if that doesn’t work out, I’ll be a surgeon, and work in emergency surgery somewhere. Or something. I’ve got time to decide.”

Cullen was looking at her, just looking, with an expression she couldn’t quite read, and she pointed the pen at him. “Your turn, Rutherford. You’re a paramedic. What’s your plan with that?”

“I -- ” He sighed. “It’s…I’m working on that.”

Mireille tucked the pen between her fingers and put her chin in her hand, waiting.

He glanced away, settling his hands in his lap, and spoke to the ceiling. “I…I’d like to leave Kirkwall, at some point, but haven’t had the opportunity. Paramedic has been sufficient for now. For a time I -- I worked for the police department, with Cassandra, but I left the job. I’d like to move into something different at some point, or drop to a more part-time position and find a different job, but I haven’t quite figured out what that might be yet.”

Mireille pressed her lips together, considering this, and the fact that she was pretty sure he’d met Brynn because they went to the same support meetings every other Saturday, just before games night. “That makes sense.”

He glanced over at her, frowning.

“No, it does. I -- ” She almost lost control of the pen, trying to tap her fingers against her chin and hold onto it at the same time. “It makes sense. They’re all public service jobs. And you’re a relatively good paramedic, when you’re not gluing -- ”

Cullen tilted his head, daring her to go on with eyebrows raised. She shut her mouth and scowled at him.

He huffed a laugh, and took the pen out of her hand. Leaning over her shoulder he wrote, _T: surgeon, R: paramedic._ And then paused and scribbled down, _adopt a dog?_

“You want a fake dog to go with our fake engagement?”

To her amusement, he blushed, and said, “I like dogs.”

“You’re proving every Fereldan stereotype I’ve ever heard right.”

Cullen wrote down, _visiting mabari rescues near Old Ostagar after the holiday._ “I’m content with that.”

Mireille glanced up at him and said, “We’re going to need to initiate some ground rules for casual touching, I suspect.”

He didn’t actually move, his shoulder just barely touching hers, and asked, “Food allergies? Coffee preferences?”

“None and none. What, you don’t want to codify it like you have everything else?”

“You don’t have coffee preferences?” he asked, gesturing with the pen. “I find that hard to believe. Shall we say every two point eight minutes, on average, or do you think a slightly higher rate would be more believable -- ”

“You are deliberately being obtuse, Rutherford.”

“Just to demonstrate that it’s a hard thing to codify,” Cullen said, flipping the page again and drawing a line down the middle, writing T on one side and R on the other. His face was still pink. Whether or not it was because of the subject at hand or because he’d been caught out as a dog lover she wasn’t entirely sure. “Quantify? Codify. Perhaps we should play it by ear, based on the situation? Do you really not have coffee preferences?”

“No, I just need about two cups in the morning before I’ll be civil, any way it’s sliced. Or served, or whatever.” Mireille nudged him with her shoulder. “You just don’t strike me as much of an improviser.”

“Neither do you, seeing as you started this list. Your favorite color is…blue?”

“Is not,” Mireille said automatically.

“Your coat is blue, and so are your socks. I have my suspicions.” He wrote down _burgundy_ on his own side of the list. “Besides, at some point in any plan, one has to improvise.”

She crossed her legs, sparing an annoyed glance for the distinctly blue socks poking out the tops of her boots. “Sometimes when you improvise you do stupid things, like make bets on the outcome of Scrabble games.”

“And I’ve learned my lesson,” Cullen muttered. “Which is ‘don’t get drunk with you.’ Favorite food?”

“Hand pies, you?”

“Rabbit stew. With bread. Hand pies is a category, not a food.”

“I like most things that can be put in a pie crust. I have some concerns about your ability to improvise, given past evidence.”

He wrote this down, too, along with _hand pies (category),_ and said absently, “I don’t intend to be _quite_ that plastered for most of this week.”

“Mm, you might regret that too.”

Cullen gave her an exasperated look and poked the notepad with the pen. “Anything else? I’m sure there’s more.”

“No kissing,” she said, on impulse.

He turned a little redder at that. But he nodded immediately, and sat back, pulling the warmth of his shoulder away from hers. “Easy enough. Hand-holding? I don’t want to -- interfere with your, ah…”

Mireille snorted. Maybe a little more derisively than she’d intended to. “If I need to use my hand, Rutherford, I can let yours go. Hand-holding is fine. Don’t try and hang onto my left elbow, it feels really weird, but anything else should be -- fine.”

“All right, then.” He knitted his fingers together around the pen, and added, “You know, if we’re pretending to be engaged, we might be long past calling each other by surname.”

“Would you like a horrible pet name, then?”

“I have a _first_ name, and so do you, Tre -- _Mireille.”_ She was getting the impression that he’d just barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes.

“ _Cullen,_ ” she said in the same exasperated tone, testing it on her tongue. “Fine. What’s your policy on horrible pet names, by the way? Endearments?”

“Not using them,” Cullen said, _“my dear._ Anything else to be prepared for?”

She shuddered. “Good point, never call me that again. Do you know how to ride? Someone will probably suggest shooting things off fences at some point. At least one person is going to suggest cheese rolling, _don’t_ agree to it. There’ll probably be at least a few card games going on. My great-aunt Lucille really likes to gamble. So stay away from that or you’ll find yourself engaged to her instead.”

“Har har,” he said, very seriously. “Har.”

“There’s always at least one fancy dress party, but you’re not obligated to dance,” she said, drumming her fingers on the armrest. The ring clacked against the plastic. “There’ll be dogs.”

“Well, if you’d said that earlier I would have agreed without the rider.”

She narrowed her eyes. “No you wouldn’t have.”

“Probably not,” he agreed, with a little bit of a smirk hovering around his mouth.

Mireille snorted and settled back into the crook of the seat. “That’s all I can think of, off the top of my head. I’m told there’s a brunch tomorrow morning and knowing my family, that means around nine. You might want to get some sleep while you can.”

“I’m all right.” Cullen ripped off the scribbled pages and tucked them into his pocket. “I’ll wake you when we arrive, if you like.”

“Well, if I wake up in Wycome, I’ll know you took pity on me after all.”

He glanced over at her, his expression shifting, but all he said was, “Do you snore?”

“Don’t worry.” She settled back into the seat and tugged her scarf up around her chin. “I don’t.”

 

* * *

 

She snored.

Not loudly, to be fair. But she snored right through the arrival announcement, woke up in time to get off the train and greet the driver of the provided car with warm recognition, and then started snoring again, leaving Cullen to pretend he didn’t notice the driver squinting at him in the rearview mirror and to watch the grey-green hills of Ostwick roll by through the window. Mireille only stirred when the car had stopped and he’d gathered their luggage _and_ opened her door for her, at which point she made a sound like “Fglmph?” and stretched both arms over her head, shivering.

“You snore,” he informed her.

“Do not,” Mireille said, yawning. “‘M awake. Le’s go.” And she sidled out of the car.

He’d expected something ancient and blocky, somehow, like Redcliffe Keep or Old Ostagar. But the manor -- it had said _manor_ on the gate at the bottom of the hill, and Cullen believed it -- was mostly new stone and wooden beams and windows, with one stone tower and a crenellated wall looming near the cliffside as a concession to history. Mireille huddled into her coat as she strode around the side of the house, under the carpark’s roof. The wind smelled like salt and heather and storms and it bit hard and wet against the back of his neck.

As they approached the door a figure melted out of the half-light inside and opened it for them, and said, “Mimi!”

“Hi, Addi,” Mireille said, and was immediately pulled into a hug that looked bone-crushing. “Ow. I didn’t think anyone -- would be up -- Maker’s balls, you are crushing all my ribs -- ”

“Just glad to see you, Mims.” The woman -- this _had_ to be Adrienne, she looked like someone who possibly lifted horses instead of just raising them, although she had less freckles than Mireille did -- looked up at Cullen. She was taller than Mireille too, although not by much. “With your -- ”

“Cullen,” he said, holding out a hand, and it was promptly gripped and shaken. “Rutherford. Adrienne? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Mm, I’m sure all of it’s lies, and I haven’t heard _anything_ about you yet. Come on, I haven’t eaten all the snacks but I’m going to in about a minute.”

“All right, fine, let me get my jacket off. And get my lungs to reinflate,” Mireille said, setting her bag down at the foot of a stairwell, and Cullen followed her lead as her sister strolled down the hall toward the kitchen. She was smiling, now, although it faltered, glancing back at him.

 _“Mims?”_ he said, under his breath.

“Do you _not_ have a stupid childhood nickname?” she snapped, but quietly, undoing the buttons on her coat. He reached for her lapel and she added, “I’ve got it.”

“We are supposed,” he said, giving her collar a gentle tug, “to be engaged. Let me take your coat, at least.”

Mireille looked up at him, and her left arm shifted against her side, and she said rather sourly, “All right.”

“If you remember, this was your idea.” He helped pull the coat off her, sliding her arms out as she turned to accommodate.

“You suggested it.”

“I _agreed_ to it.” Cullen draped the coat over his arm and held out his hand for her scarf, which she ignored, smoothing down her skirt. “There is a difference.”

She rearranged the rolled-up sleeve of her cardigan against her elbow, and gave him a dark look. “I take no responsibility for your suggestible nature.”

“Just advantage of it?”

“If you remember,” she said, tugging off her scarf and arranging it in the neck of her coat, “I gave you an out.”

“I needed the leverage. You haven’t let the glue discussion go since I met you.” Mireille gave him a look that suggested she was chewing over some biting rejoinder, and he shooed her off with his unoccupied hand. “Go on, you already complained enough about a lack of en-route snacks, you’d best get out there before they vanish.”

“I just didn’t _pack_ any snacks, because I forgot, and it turns out you are a crazy person who travels without them,” she muttered, but she strode off toward the glow of the kitchen. He heard her exclaim something, and a laugh from her sister.

Cullen found the closet easily enough -- _stuffed_ with coats, Maker’s breath, and half of them were black peacoats, most with tartan scarves draped over their shoulders. He tucked his and Mireille’s at the very end, and hesitated over the luggage, but seeing as he didn’t know where to take it, he probably ought to leave it here and stop stalling.

He went back and shut the closet door more securely.

He was definitely stalling now.

He hesitated, again, and then left his shoes on because Mireille had left hers on, and followed her path to the kitchen.

Adrienne was stifling a yawn, but she waved with the other hand as he entered. She was standing at one side of the massive granite-topped island, and Mireille had taken one of the bar stools so she could pilfer pieces of pear and cheese from a cutting board within reach. Aside from a fruit bowl and a candle, and the cheeseboard, it might well have been a show kitchen, clinically spotless. “You didn’t have to wait up, Addi,” Mireille said, through a mouthful.

Might as well begin as he meant to go on. Cullen took up the stool beside Mireille, his hand gliding over her shoulders, and she glanced up maybe a little more sharply than seemed plausible. He squeezed her shoulder gently and said to Adrienne, “This is a beautiful kitchen.”

Adrienne nodded through the last of her yawn. “‘Scuse me. Dad can’t cook, which is hereditary, but our stepmother is pretty fond of it so they redid it a couple of years ago.” She leaned over and plucked a piece of pear out of Mireille’s fingers, prompting an indignant noise. “Congratulations, by the way, which I didn’t get to say last year, because _someone_ has been ignoring my texts, apparently.”

“I was not,” Mireille said, but weakly. “I might have forgotten to answer one or two of them.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you did.” Adrienne wrinkled her nose, smiling slightly, such a Mireille-like gesture that Cullen had to suppress a laugh. “I’m going to avoid asking you all the questions because you’re going to get bombarded when everyone’s awake again, but if you ever want any advice, let me know. Or ask Lin. She did a lot of the planning.”

“Where _is_ Linnet?” Mireille asked, picking up another piece of pear, which was promptly swiped. “Stop stealing my pears.”

“My pears now,” Adrienne said, popping it into her mouth. “She’s asleep, like a normal person. I don’t know why Max put you on that late a train.”

“I’m sure he thought it’d work best for my schedule, I had a final this morning.”

Cullen reached over and retrieved a piece of pear, avoiding Mireille’s reaching hand, and her expression got about halfway to full glare before she dialed it back down. Adrienne nudged the board slightly out of Mireille’s reach, and she said plaintively, “This is why I don’t come home for the holidays.”

“And when you finally do you bring someone really tall with you, so you can cheat,” Adrienne said, as Cullen reached over for a piece of cheese. “Cullen, you’re a paramedic? Besides being tall?”

“Mm. Yes.” He hadn’t been expecting the question, somehow, and had to swallow hard before he answered. “We work at the same hospital, in fact.”

“Charming.” Adrienne batted her eyes at Mireille, who snagged a second piece of cheese out of Cullen’s fingers with a _hmph_ of victory. “Seriously, very cute. How’d you meet?”

This was not on the list they’d prepared. Mireille’s eyes very nearly sparkled as she opened her mouth, and he cut her off. “I was, ah…injured in the line of duty.”

“A dust addict stabbed you in the side on the ambulance ride,” Mireille said dryly, standing up on the edge of her stool to get at the cheeseboard, and she snagged a piece of fruit before Adrienne could react. “I was on duty in emergency surgery, and it was a simple fix, only -- ”

“Only a couple of stitches,” Cullen said, and kicked her leg under the bar. She stuck her tongue out at him. Impressively childish, even for Mireille Trevelyan. “It was my…fifth? Fifth week working full time, or so, at the hospital. We kept running into each other after that.”

“Literally, that one time.”

“I was hoping you didn’t remember that,” he said, and Mireille grinned at him. “We have a mutual friend or two, as it turned out, and the… ah, it sort of worked out from there.”

“And now you’re engaged,” Adrienne finished, balancing her chin in her hands. “Could be worse, I mean, I met Lin the day she fell off a horse and broke her arm.”

“Right, because you’d put her _on_ the horse.” Mireille snorted, and Cullen picked up another piece of pear, dodging her attempts to steal it. She gave him a wounded look, which did nothing to dissuade him from eating it.

Adrienne stifled another yawn. “Maker. Okay, if I ask you all the questions I want to ask you you’ll hate me and none of us will get any sleep. Help me put this away.”

“I’m going to put it away in my stomach,” Mireille said, reaching out, and Adrienne batted her hand away with a piece of aluminum foil.

“Yeah, that’s how I know we should go to bed, so we don’t eat sixteen pears each and regret it tomorrow.”

“I have eaten _so_ little pear.”

“Consider it a Satinalia gift from me to your digestive system, then.” Adrienne fitted the foil over the bowl of fruit and crossed the kitchen to put it in the fridge, and Cullen reached over Mireille’s arm and stuffed the remaining cheese back into the bag tucked under the cutting board. She plucked halfheartedly at his sleeve to try and stop him. “Father had a bigger bed moved into your room, by the way, but Demelza promises she didn’t change too much this time. Unfortunately, you’re sharing the bathroom with Kel and Ellie because of all the shuffling. But you might be able to excavate some space for your toiletries among the debris.” She yawned again, into the crook of her elbow, and came around the island to hug Mireille. “It’s good to have you back in town, Mims.”

Mireille gave him a dirty look over her sister’s shoulder, and Cullen tried to get his grin under control. Adrienne let her go and squeezed his arm. “Nice to meet you, Cullen, and good luck. You’re going to need it. Congrats on the engagement.”

When she’d disappeared up the stairs, Mireille leaned over and muttered, “That’s not how we met.”

“We agreed no discussion of adhesives, in _any_ way,” Cullen muttered back, standing up and pushing the bar stool back into place. _“Mims.”_

“We also agreed no nicknames.”

“I didn’t think you remembered literally running into me.”

“Of course I remember, it was the second time I’d met you.” She wrinkled her nose. “I nearly broke my nose on your bloody chin.”

“No, you didn’t. Your nose doesn’t come anywhere near my chin.”

“That’s why it was so weird,” she said absently, standing up and running a hand through her hair. One of her curls was now sticking straight up. 

Cullen squinted at her. “Are you feeling all right?”

Mireille stuck her tongue out at him again, then seemed to realize she was doing it, because she shook her head and retracted it into a yawn that threatened to swallow her words. “I’m just -- I'm just  _really_ tired. Come on, it’s this way.”

 

* * *

 

The house had changed, new couches and different paintings, a new wall here and an old removed there, but her feet still remembered the creakiest floorboards and how to avoid them. It still felt slightly thrilling to pad through the dark hallways, avoiding the faint light drifting in bars across the floor as the clouds shifted. Maybe it always would. She’d spent a lot of nights waiting until everyone fell asleep to slip down to the study and nick another book off her parents’ shelves, and in the silver cinnamon-smelling dark of the stairwell she put out her left hand automatically to trace the garland wrapped around the banister.

It occurred to her about halfway through the motion that it wasn’t going to work. Mireille shook herself and tucked her left arm against her side. If Cullen had anything to say about it, though, he was keeping it to himself for now.

Her bedroom door still squeaked a bit. And it still smelled the same, gently musty in the way of old books and closed off spaces. Mireille went for the lamp and found the edge of the larger bed with her knee instead before Cullen flicked the lightswitch.

She sank down on the edge of the bed, trying and utterly failing to suppress another yawn. Cullen had set his bag down and drifted over to her bookshelf, and she ignored him in favor of digging out her toiletry bag.

The walls were still the same muted blue, which was an annoying confirmation of her taste in colors. The line of embroidery hoops on the wall by the door was new -- Demelza, probably, redecorating again with all the things left here over the years. She was probably the reason for the tasteful grey duvet and the sixteen pillows, too, and the new lampshade.

Mireille straightened up with the bag and kicked her heels against the bed frame.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been home for years. It’d barely been a year, hadn’t it? It was always a bit fraught, wasn’t it? It didn’t need to feel this strange.

Across the room Cullen huffed a laugh and said, “This explains a lot about you, I feel like.”

He was holding a well-loved paperback in his hands, and held up the cover to show her. Mireille shrugged. “I defend that choice. _Dealing with Dragons_ is a great book _._ Didn’t you ever read that as a kid?”

“I did,” he said, shelving it again, “although I think you might have been taking notes.”

“Not in my fantasy novels, no.”

“But you did take notes in other books.” He ran his finger along the spines.

“Books are, occasionally, for taking notes in,” she said, not a little patronizingly. “Bathroom is down the hall, by the way, which is where I’ll be, so don’t mess up my books while I’m gone.”

“Don’t worry, Trevelyan,” Cullen said, selecting a science fiction novel she’d read about sixteen times. “You’ve already worn the cover off this one, there’s very little I can do.”

“Shut up.”

Kelynen and Elowen really had taken over this bathroom. Mireille opened a few drawers in dismay and then sighed and made space in a corner, shuffling a rack of tiny decorative towels and one of the three makeup organizers over so she could put her toiletry bag down. 

She was very tired, she told herself, scrubbing off her lipstick. Up since six studying, last two papers turned in in the last three days, last exam taken this morning. Packing. A four hour train ride. That was probably the reason she was feeling so -- so talkative and restless and…disgruntled.  Just the late night and the accumulated stress. And the nap. And the second nap in the car. That was probably all it was. 

It was still scraping against the edges of her awareness that a tall and deep-voiced and relatively obnoxious person was standing in her childhood bedroom _,_ running his fingers over her books, maybe peering at her old embroidery projects. Probably critiquing her stitching, even. 

Mireille stuffed the toothbrush in her mouth and focused on getting every tooth _extremely clean._

The bedroom had gotten markedly colder while she was away. Cullen was sitting on the bed next to the slightly open window, holding a book she didn’t recognize, which meant it was probably one of his own. He glanced up and closed it.

“You can stack your bag on top of mine in there if you can’t find space,” she said, and he nodded and disappeared down the hall.

She’d been used to her little twin bed. The constellation quilt that had covered it was folded up on the chest at the new bed’s foot, now, and Mireille ran her hand over Equinor’s silver lines, Judex’s bright points.

It was probably better this way, rather than trying to share a tiny twin bed with Cullen. That would be a _lot_ more cuddling than she was willing to entertain for the sake of a joke. Mireille shook it out of her head and stripped her cardigan off, shivering as she shut the door.

She ought to tell Addi about the joke, actually. It’d be funnier if someone else knew, if it wasn’t just an inside joke between herself and Cullen. That and deceiving Addi felt ruder than deceiving her father, or her brothers, or any of her cousins.

Mireille peeled off her stockings before she took off her dress, and then pulled on her pajama pants for maximum warmth, and then the dress could come off and she could unhook her bra and -- she ought to have _locked_ the door before she did this -- too late. She got the shirt over her head around the time that creaking footsteps announced Cullen’s return.

But he knocked before he opened the door, and she adjusted her shirt and picked up her socks. “Come in.”

“I’m impressed your siblings have managed to put that much clutter on one bathroom sink,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Are you putting _on_ socks to go to bed?”

“Oh no, our fake marriage is over,” Mireille said, waving her hand in fake distress. Cullen did not look impressed. She worked her socks back on anyway. “My toes get cold.”

He snorted and glanced down at his suitcase, and she realized belatedly he was still dressed in jeans and a buttoned sweater. She added, “I won’t look if you want to change.”

He went pink, but she didn’t see any more than that, because she picked up her phone and settled herself in the bed with her head under the covers.

Two messages from Brynn -- she must be on her own flight by now, that was barely any -- that she’d answer tomorrow when she could make her brain function enough to text. One email from Professor de Fer with a debrief of the last week’s work and a wish for a good holiday…flagged for followup, she ought to at least reply with a pleasantry. Three emails from the research association listserv. One sale from the company that made her least favorite prosthetic. Two clothing sales. Mark as read. 

Her eyelids kept closing. This was a comfortable bed, even if it was a damn cold one. The only things that felt warm right now were her cheeks, and even that was passing.

The bed creaked and she felt Cullen sit down on the edge, heard the soft thunk of a phone charger being plugged into the wall. Then the blankets moved, letting in a wash of chilly air, and he said, “How do you want to do this?”

“Let me put it this way,” Mireille said, rolling onto her side to look at him across the expanse of bed. It wasn’t much of a distance, really. “If you put cold toes on me at any point, I’m going to fake divorce you.”

He snorted, the unscarred corner of his mouth twitching up in a smile. “Tempting, but we’re not fake married, we’re fake _engaged,_ as I recall.”

“Whatever.” She covered her yawn with her phone. “Same logic applies.”

Cullen pulled the blankets up, shifting his weight, and she wriggled backward so she wouldn’t roll right into him. “Same to you,” he said, “although apparently you wear _socks_ in _bed.”_

“You apparently wear -- ” She squinted at him, but he was mostly under the blankets by now. “Whatever you’re wearing.”

“A shirt? Pants? No socks?”

“Go to sleep,” Mireille said, through a yawn. He snorted and turned out the light.

She let her eyes drift closed. Even with the window cracked it was beginning to get warm under the covers, and clean sheets were always a pleasure. Eventually she’d probably stop shivering.

Across the bed Cullen shifted again.

Two minutes later he did it for the sixth time and she muttered into the blankets, “You have _got_ to hold still.”

“Pardon me,” he said, in a tone that definitely bordered on griping, “I don’t generally share a bed with people, and it takes a moment to get comfortable.”

“I can see why, you’re like a small earthquake.”

_“Trevelyan."_

“Rutherford.”

“Go to sleep.”

He settled in place for a long moment, and she closed her eyes again, starting to drift. Until he moved again. She rolled onto her side, trying not to huff.

It’d been a long time since she’d shared a bed with someone. Did people always move this much, in bed? She couldn’t remember for some reason. Maybe it just mattered less when you were doing other activities. Or you got used to it. Or if you liked someone you could just handle them shifting their feet about. She didn’t remember minding any of her past partners doing it, although Kira’s feet had been freezing without exception…

She could almost feel warmth radiating off him. Either she was imagining that, which was possible, or he was a furnace of a person. Or this bed was smaller than she thought it was. Maybe all three.  

If it’d still been a twin bed she might have killed him already. It was going to be a long week as it was.

Mireille rubbed her cheek against the pillow and squeezed her eyes shut. Behind her Cullen shifted, and she felt him tuck his arm under his pillow, the mattress dipping as his feet moved. It was _cold_ in this bed. Her toes were freezing even in her socks. The sheets had achieved lukewarm, which wasn’t saying much.

She tugged the blankets a little closer, and he shifted _again,_ tugging back.

Mireille buried her nose in the blanket, nestling herself in as deeply as possible so her ears would stay warm too. From somewhere behind her he sighed, and shifted, the imagined warmth of his body rippling across her spine.

It was going to be a very, very long week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dealing with dragons is by patricia c wrede and is fantastic. (and was probably a bit of an indirect inspiration for mireille...i'm very fond of the enchanted forest chronicles, haha.) 
> 
> see you in two weeks or so with another one!


	3. performance

_Brunch,_ Mireille had said, as if it were a casual affair for a few family members, and not seventy-five Trevelyans of varying ages milling around with mugs of coffee and plates of appetizers in a room Cullen had been told was called the sunroom and which he’d privately classified as _bloody huge,_ complete with a harp in one corner and stained-glass panels of Andraste marching to war above the windows and cabinets of books that looked more for show than for enjoyment. This was, apparently, brunch. The sun was out, the frost was melting on the moors beyond the glass, and the room was warm and chattery.

This had been a _terrible_ idea.

Mireille looked like she felt the same way, which was some small comfort, at least. Cullen leaned over her shoulder and muttered, “I’ve never seen someone scowl for two hours straight before.”

“You’re about to see someone scowl for three hours straight,” she muttered back, checking her watch.

“You meant it when you said you’re unbearable before coffee, didn’t you?”

“You might even see four.” She drained her mug.

Cullen coughed out a laugh, and she frowned a little deeper and opened her mouth to say something when an exclamation from the crowd cut her off. “So this is the fiancé?”

“Yes, Talan, this is my _fiancé,”_ Mireille said, and tried valiantly to drain an already empty mug. “Talan, Cullen, Cullen, Talan. Coffee.”

The young man in front of him stuck out a hand. He was the tallest Trevelyan Cullen had seen yet, although the curly hair and the smattering of freckles seemed right, and so did the exacting look he was being given. Cullen shook his hand firmly and said, “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“None of us have heard anything about you,” Talan said, shifting his look over to Mireille, who raised an eyebrow in warning. He squeezed Cullen’s hand again, hard, before he let go. “For some reason.”

“I wonder why,” Mireille said in a voice laden with sarcasm, and Cullen cut in over her head, “We had intended to wait a while and simply -- ah -- enjoy the engagement, but Mireille ended up mentioning it to you and the dog was off the leash, as it were.”

Talan leaned against the wall. There was a Templar recruit pin on his lapel, the solid black sword lined in gold so it’d gleam just enough to be noticed before it was replaced with the silver-filled pin of a full knight. He’d sent his home to Branson when he’d graduated, years ago. “So when’s the wedding, then? Since you’ve been engaged for a year or so, it must be soon, right?”

“I’m getting more coffee,” Mireille said, hopping down from her chair. “I’d offer to bring some back, but I’ve only got so many hands.”

Talan gave her a look. “You can just ask one of the caterers, you know. They’ll bring you something.”

“I still have _legs,”_ she said, rather scathingly, and vanished into the crowd.

Talan turned back to Cullen, raising his eyebrows. “You _really_ want to marry her? I mean, you know, I’m glad you’re going to marry her and good for you and all, but you _really_ want to marry her?”

“I,” Cullen said, and then his brain started to catch up with the script it was supposed to be running. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”

Talan thought about this for a second. “I guess I just didn’t think she’d ever get married to anybody. I figured she’d just study magic or teach or something for the rest of her life in the Circle, and turn into the weird aunt who teaches your kids to say things like ‘pedagogy’ or ‘metacarpal’ as their first words instead of Mama and Papa.”

This did sound more like the Mireille Trevelyan he was familiar with, to be fair. “Well, I’m sure she can still manage that, don’t worry.”

“And you’re _really_ tall, and hot,” Talan continued, with a dismissive gesture, “so that’s kind of weird, too. I thought Kel might be next, if anybody, but then she broke up with her girlfriend. Plus Mireille’s pretty grouchy if you catch her before coffee.”

“I’d noticed,” Cullen said. “I can’t say it’s a compelling reason not to marry someone, though. You’re in Templar training, I take it?”

Talan puffed up a bit, glancing down with excitement at the pin. “Yeah. Yes. I’ll be finished by Summerday and then they’ll post me. There’s a lot of vacancies in Kirkwall now after -- well, after everything, you know, or maybe they’ll send me somewhere near the border, like Hasmal.” He rubbed an imaginary smudge off the pin with a thumb. “My aunt is the Knight-Captain there, too, Jeneth. It’s kind of a family tradition, joining the Templars.”

He might well have been looking at himself, seventeen and brightly enthusiastic about a life of swords and noble deeds and protecting the innocent. Bad choice of distraction. Cullen managed to say, “You must be glad to be nearly finished.”

“I’ve been training since I was ten for this.” Talan deflated a bit, fiddling with the pin. “I just hope -- well. I guess we’ll see how it goes, with everything. I guess they can post me to Ostwick now that Mireille isn’t there anymore.” There was something faintly rankling in his voice.

“Well, best of luck with it.”

Talan squinted at him. “You’re remarkably pleasant. Are you _sure_ you want to marry Mireille? She’s relatively well known for, you know. Not being pleasant.”

“You’d be surprised.”

So would he, really. There were plenty of good adjectives in the world to describe her, but most of them were synonyms for smart and argumentative, not for _pleasant._

Talan’s brow furrowed a little deeper -- maybe he hadn't sounded as convincing as he'd hoped -- but whatever he was going to say was overrun by a young woman currently winning tallest Trevelyan by virtue of her fluffy auburn hair leaning her chin on his shoulder. She was wearing an oversized blazer and a mischievous expression. “You must be Mireille’s fiancé, you’re the only person here who’s not a brunette.”

“You’re correct.”

“You’re annoying,” Talan said to her, shrugging her chin away. She straightened up, and he eyed her, drawing himself up a little taller. “This is my little sister Elowen.”

“Ellie,” Elowen said, sticking out a hand to shake. “So you’re marrying my stepsister? How’d that happen? When did that happen?”

“We work in the same building,” Mireille said dryly, and her siblings both jumped, which Cullen suspected was why she’d snuck up on them. There were two mugs clenched together in her hand, slightly damp with spilled coffee, and Cullen extracted one carefully from her grip with a murmur of thanks. “Extrapolate from there.”

“That is _not_ the whole story,” Elowen said, and Talan gave a long-suffering sigh.

“Would you like a play-by-play?” She set her mug down, redoubling her grip on the handle, picked it back up. “Sometimes paramedics get injured. I was on duty. We ran into each other a few times too many after that. Sparks flew, stars crossed, et cetera.”

“It just sort of happened,” Cullen said, trying to give her a look of reprimand that’d be subtle enough to go unnoticed, but she was too short and standing too close to him for a proper eyeballing. “We both generally work in the emergency department, at the hospital. I…suppose when you see lives cut short by accidents every week, you don’t feel like waiting to tell someone how you feel.”

Elowen and Talan both seemed slightly amazed, while Mireille’s face shifted between a pleasant facade and what looked to be an urge to throttle him. “I suppose so.” And then she was leaning into him, her left elbow resting at the small of his back. “Love at first stitches, that’s us.”

“Gross,” Elowen said, but she sounded impressed. “I can’t believe you were his _doctor._ That’s so fuckin’ romantic. Good for you, Mimi.”

“You have the mouth of a sailor,” Talan muttered, and Elowen beamed.

“I do appreciate that she can keep me in stitches,” Cullen said before he could stop himself, and Mireille choked on her coffee.

Talan sighed, although it was hard to tell if it was in exasperation or in dreamy contemplation. He might not have even noticed. “I can’t believe you’re getting married to this man.”

“Me neither,” Mireille said, with an innocent and extremely sharp-edged smile.

When her stepsiblings had gone and he went to pull away, Mireille shifted closer to him and said in a low stern whisper, “You are having far too much fun with this. Did you have to pick _now_ to remove the stick from your arse? Could you not have waited a week or two to develop a terrible sense of humor? I swear to Andraste’s charcoal _arse_ I am going to feed your tongue to one of the dogs.”

Cullen raised his eyebrows and looked down at her, trying not to sound too amused. “You weren’t being particularly convincing, I thought I’d step in. Haven’t you had enough coffee to stop being irritable by now?”

“It’s half decaf, and I haven’t eaten yet, and _puns_ are not _convincing.”_ She’d craned her neck to look at him, and her left arm shifted against his back before she huffed and looked back down, rolling her shoulders against his side and working her neck back and forth. “This was the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. This is a worse idea than the magisters entering the Golden City. This is the _worst idea.”_

“You,” Cullen said, “are very dramatic.”

“You’re a tit,” she muttered back.

“I didn’t think you were planning to bring me coffee, by the way, thank you.”

“I wasn’t.” Mireille took a long gulp, and then coughed a couple of times. “Thought I’d save you from Max, he’s been lingering around the coffee waiting to get one of us alone, but now I kind of wish I’d left you to the dogs, except that’s not the right metaphor because you would actually enjoy that. You know your face is very red?”

His cheeks had felt hot since he’d walked into the room, really. “It’s rather warm in here. Did you know that no one will be convinced you’re engaged if you say ‘extrapolate from there’ about the history of your relationship?”

“‘When you see lives cut short by accidents, you don’t feel like waiting,’” she said in mocking tones, tapping her first two fingers against her mug in an approximation of finger quotes. “How is _that_ convincing? You could serve it with crackers it’s so cheesy.”

“You should have warned me that you’re insufferable before you _eat,_ not before coffee.”

“You’re not getting another rider out of it.”

“What else could I possibly want from you, Trevelyan?”

 _“Mireille,”_ she said, patiently and patronizingly. “Remember? Besides, if you say Trevelyan in this room, you’ll get about sixty responses.”

He gave the top of her head an unamused look and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, partly because someone was looking in their direction and partly because he was pretty sure it’d annoy her. _“Mireille._ What I don’t believe we discussed is what would happen if anyone found out.”

“That’s because no one will find out.”

“Then go eat something before your abundant sarcasm gives it away,” he snapped, but quietly. “I can’t imagine everyone in this room is immune to it, since they’re all related to you.”

“Fine, _dearest.”_ She disentangled herself from his arm. “Keep a lid on your bloody puns from now on.”

“Then don’t break your own rules about nicknames, _dear._ Let me -- ” Cullen lifted the mug out of her hand, and she scowled at him. “Don’t give me that, I’m not going to drink your coffee, I’m freeing up your hand. Maker’s breath.”

Mireille wrinkled her nose, but she did sidle away through the crowd. He set down her coffee cup and pinched the bridge of his nose.

She was, annoyingly, right. This _had_ been a terrible idea. But he’d thought of it first, which he felt should count for something.

 

* * *

 

 **Brynn (1:30 PM)**  
have you killed cullen yet?  
or are you waiting until dinner

 **Mireille (1:34 PM)  
**I thought brunch would do him in for me but he seems to be persisting

 **Brynn (1:34 PM)  
**so you HAVEN’T killed him yet, that’s good !

 **Mireille (1:35 PM)**  
No deaths yet but not for lack of trying  
26 years of being House Trevelyan’s problem child and suddenly everybody’s interested in my business because they think I’m getting married  
I thought I was going to spend most of Satinalia with Addi or with the kids, not fending off the concerned masses

 **Brynn (1:35 PM)**  
well, you’re ~getting pretend married~  
everybody loves a marriage!  
also didn’t you expect this??

 **Mireille (1:36 PM)**  
I didn’t expect so MUCH of it!  
Why my family needs to know every detail of my fake relationship is mystifying  
Fine. It’s not mystifying. I know why. It’s just annoying

 **Brynn (1:37 PM)**  
yeah, i feel like you might have expected this given. ya know. everything about how they reacted to arden haha. you’re fake ENGAGED now, too. for a year!!  
he’s holding up okay then i take it?

 **Mireille (1:37 PM)  
**Ask him yourself. He’s breathing, I can confirm that much

 **Brynn (1:38 PM)  
**fine, i will!!

\---------

 **Brynn (1:38 PM)**  
has miri killed you yet  
or have you killed her??  
are you locked in a struggle to the death over the outcome of a game of wicked grace  
oh, did you meet the dogs yet, my favorite is temps

 **Cullen (1:43 PM)  
**The dog’s name is Temps?

 **Brynn (1:43 PM)**  
the dog’s name is temperance because miri’s dad names all the dogs and he has weird taste  
i like to nickname them  
temps is the oldest and also the best

 **Cullen (1:44 PM)**  
I haven’t met that dog yet, no.  
I’ve met Patience and Valor, though. They were extremely friendly.  
I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ve never been around this many members of the nobility before but they don’t seem to have noticed that I don’t have a tartan scarf

 **Brynn (1:45 PM)**  
oh they did. but you get a pass since you’re from ferelden and not another marcher state  
they might make the occasional dog joke but if you make one back it disarms them

 **Cullen (1:45 PM)  
**Why do you know that

 **Brynn (1:45 PM)  
**sera does it every time someone makes a dog joke and it takes people right off guard and also it is hilarious!!

 **Cullen (1:46 PM)  
**Calling someone a bitch does not a dog joke make

 **Brynn (1:46 PM)**  
i saw you laugh last time, don’t lie to me  
ah shit i have to go but have fun pretending to be engaged!! try not to kill each other!!

 **Cullen (1:47 PM)  
**I’ll do my best.

 **Brynn (1:47 PM)**  
really tho  
just look out for her for me okay  
she might not always admit it but family’s tough for her and i know you’re not exactly close but  
if you could, ya know. make sure she doesn’t kill anybody

 **Cullen (1:51 PM)  
**She’s done very well at not killing anyone so far, I have to say

 **Brynn (1:51 PM)**  
yeah, well. she’ll surprise you. it’s when she gets all quiet that she’s really planning a verbal murder  
okay i REALLY have to go, sera says you’re a stiff-arsed wazzock, which i assume is her way of saying ‘love ya’

 **Cullen (1:52 PM)**  
Tell Sera she’s a cheeky little wagoff and she’d better keep all her bones in place this time.  
Have fun on your ski trip, by the way

 **Brynn (1:52 PM)  
**i will!!!

\--------- 

 **Brynn (1:52 PM)  
**gotta go ski a hill but love you and good luck and i firmly believe in your ability to NOT kill any of your family members especially your brother!! bye!!

 **Mireille (1:54 PM)**  
What a vote of confidence!!  
Love you too, please tell Sera to AVOID the trees this time

 **Brynn (1:54 PM)  
**i will protect her from trees

 **Mireille (1:54 PM)  
**Avoid the trees yourself too

 **Brynn (1:55 PM)  
**bye love you!!!

 

* * *

 

“I think Father’s a bit peeved with you,” Max said, holding out a glass.

Mireille raised her eyebrows at him and lifted the glass currently in her hand. “Have you seriously been lurking around the whole day _just_ to tell me Father’s not happy with me? He’s never been happy with me. This is not news. Goodbye.”

“I’m _serious.”_ Max rolled his eyes and set the glass down on the deck’s railing. “And that’s unfair, you know he’s been happy with you before.”

“Not in my memory.” She dumped the fresh glass of -- something, she actually hadn’t bothered to check what it was, but it was pale golden and therefore probably wine -- into her current glass and then picked it up. The result was something vaguely pink that made Max grimace as she sipped it. Tasted all right, though.

“Didn’t you usually -- ” Max made a gesture toward her left arm.

“Didn’t I usually what?”

He paused, and gestured again, a bit helplessly. “Have…a prosthetic on.”

“Sometimes,” Mireille said, as patronizingly as possible, “I don’t wear it. Didn’t you have a child with you?”

Max’s attention snapped down toward the grounds. The snow fort growing in the yard was starting to look impressive, and children and a few adults swarmed around it, only occasionally stopping to throw snow at each other. Nessa was nowhere to be seen. Especially given that Mireille had watched her niece sneak over to the covered plate of shortbread cookies sitting on the table and quietly work the plastic wrap off them instead of heading down the deck’s stairs two minutes ago.

It didn’t distract Max for long, unfortunately, but she got another big gulp of wine down before he returned, child in tow. Nessa solemnly held out a shortbread. “Getting a cookie f’r Aunt Mimi.”

“Very kind of you,” Mireille said, taking the cookie. “Thank you, Nessa.”

“Sure you were, Ness,” Max said, “and how many did you eat?”

“They’re f’r Aunt Mimi.” There were crumbs all over her face. “‘M being nice. Giving people cookies is nice, Daddy.”

Max narrowed his eyes at Mireille, who shrugged and popped the cookie into her mouth. “It _is_ nice. And I appreciate it.”

“Go build the fort with your sister,” Max said, putting Nessa down. “Okay?”

“M’k.”

There was a brief negotiation over getting down the stairs, and now would be an extremely good time to head inside and save Cullen from wherever he’d gotten himself trapped, all she had to do was swing a leg over the bench next to the heater and make it across the deck to the door --

“Are you running away again?” Max demanded, turning around, and Mireille froze about halfway through jumping the bench.

“I’m not running away from anything,” she snapped, lowering her foot and retreating to the railing.

He snorted. “Right, of course not. Look, I just meant to let you know, that’s all. I think he’s just a bit peeved you didn’t do it traditionally, really.”

“I think I broke tradition when I was _born_ and he’s never forgiven me for it since. He can’t very well hold it against me now.”

Max sighed, rather dramatically, and joined her at the railing. “He’s just worried because he cares, you know. We all are.”

“Worried about the reputation I’m giving the family, you mean.”

“Worried about _you.”_ He elbowed her, and she jabbed him back with her left arm. It made him jump. “Stop that.”

“No.” She did it again, ignoring the weird funnybone-tingling in her elbow. “You deserve it.”

“Stop it, it’s _weird._ Mireille -- ” He went to slap her arm away and hesitated, which let her get a good dig into his ribs. “Stop it. You’re such a child.”

“Yes, you’re so venerable and wise, oldest and yet somehow not tallest brother -- ”

“Andraste’s ashes, Mimi, we’re just worried because you have terrible taste in partners and now you’re _engaged.”_ He dodged her next elbow and she got him with the right. “Ow. Don’t be a brat, you know I’m right.”

“You dated exclusively blondes who ruined your life and stole your ties before Ali. You do not get to malign my taste.” Mireille picked up her wineglass, holding up one finger as she drank.

He did not wait until she’d finished, rudely. “Yeah I do, because none of my relationships ended in -- ” Max waved a hand at her arm.

“You’re going to be _such_ a good diplomat someday, Millie. You’re already so sensitive.”

“Quit calling me that stupid nickname,” Max said, dropping onto the bench heavily. “Look, I like this Cullen guy all right so far, but come on. You come home and you say you’re engaged, so soon after -- after Arden? You’ve been engaged for a _year?_ You didn’t think to tell your family?”

Mireille raised her eyebrows.

“It’s just _fast._ How long did you even date before you decided to get married? Do you _know_ what a step that is?”

She raised them a little higher. “I understand the concept, Millie. I am, contrary to popular belief, an adult, capable of understanding complex concepts like -- say -- performing major surgery _,_ let alone fucking _marriage.”_

“Don’t call me that. And that doesn’t necessarily make me trust your judgment.”

Mireille chewed on this for a minute, and finally said, “You know, conversations like this might be why I don’t tell the family things. Because you’ve already decided my judgment’s poor before we discuss it.”

“To be fair -- ”

She stared at Max until he looked away and muttered, “It’s a pretty compelling reason.”

“You’ve been doing it my whole life, Millie. Somehow we can all pretend to forget about when you broke your arm trying to climb the trellis to Rosie Tallack’s bedroom, or that time you tried to nick a locket out of Mum’s jewelry box for -- I don’t even remember her name -- ”

Max’s cheeks had gone dark and he folded his arms. “This is very childish of you.”

Mireille stuck her tongue out at him.

He rolled his eyes. “You know we just worry about you. Father’s just…he just has a hard time talking to you about it.”

“He could try,” she grumbled, and it sounded so much more petty and petulant than she’d intended that she shook herself and straightened up, resting an elbow and a half on the rail. “Instead of having you translate for him, apparently.”

“Well, you know he’s got the dinner tonight. But you could try talking to him first for once, instead of waiting until he come around.”

“Oh, yes, certainly, a great idea that’s never turned into an argument, ever.”

“I’m just saying, you could _try,”_ Max said, standing up. “Is that your fiancé down there?”

Mireille squinted down. Yes, that certainly _was_ Cullen kneeling in the snow -- in _trousers --_  sketching out something with his hands to a group of interested children, pointing at various areas of the snow fort. Nessa was standing front and center, holding her older sister’s hand.

Cullen clapped his hands together and there was a general shout as children scattered. He’d found a snow shovel somewhere, too. Where had he found _that?_ Probably in the groundskeeper’s shed, which meant he’d _thought_ about this snow fort building. Maker’s balls. At least he was having fun.

“He does seem like a good sort of fellow,” Max said, leaning on the railing beside her. “And you brought him home, I suppose that’s something.”

“Mhm,” Mireille said. “You know, the other reason I don’t tell you anything is because everyone in this family is a terrible gossip hound and can’t keep their mouths shut.”

“You included. You told everyone that Ali and I were trying for a kid _\-- ”_

“I only said something to Addi, because I was trying to suggest a couple of different avenues for fertility treatments because Ali had mentioned -- look, I was trying to _help -- ”_

“Yeah, you were _not_ discreet about that.” Max snorted. “I’ve forgiven you for it, don’t worry.”

“How very big of you.”

“For someone who has no idea how to butt out of anyone _else’s_ business at top volume, you really like trying to keep everybody out of your own.”

Mireille glared at him. “I developed that in self-defense. I haven’t had a second of peace about what I should or shouldn’t be doing in my entire life, I might as well butt into everyone else’s -- everything.”

“Welcome to House Trevelyan.” Max jerked his thumb down at the yard. There were already several new walls under construction on the fort. Was that a _tunnel?_ “You warned him, right?”

“I warned him about several things,” Mireille said dryly. “I’m sure he figured it out right around the first conversation with Great-Aunt Lucille.”

“Maker, he’s already met Great-Aunt Lucille? What an introduction to your in-laws.” Max glanced up at her and added, “Have you met his family yet?”

“No.” And likely never would.  

“Are they well known in Ferelden?”

“I doubt it.” She peered over the railing. There was a small amount of screaming going on, but it mostly seemed to be happy screaming. “He’s not nobility. Oh, don’t _give_ me that face, it’s not a scandal, Addi already did it and you didn’t want your mage sister marrying into nobility anyway. Or did you? Or was that only if it was another mage from a noble house? I’ve forgotten.”

“Addi at least married _at_ her station.”

Oh, this was _so_ much defense to give to an entirely falsified relationship. Mireille drew in a long breath and let it out, slowly, and said, “Okay, think for about two seconds about _why_ that is likely to offend people, Max. I’ll wait.”

Max looked like he was thinking about it, at least, but there was a small wail from below and his gaze snapped over. “Maker, I’d better -- Kensa do _not_ push your sister down that.”

Mireille took his spot next to the heater as he left. It felt justified, if a bit childish.

After a few minutes small parade of children and adults made their way up the stairs and into the house, chattering all the while. She was busy waving hello to an extremely small person nearly spherical with winter coats (a cousin once removed, if she was remembering the relations right) when Cullen sat down next to her and said, “I did not know you could own an outdoor heater in a home.”

“I didn’t know you could sneak around in snow boots,” she muttered. “Or build snow forts, for that matter.”

“There’s little else to do in Ferelden in the winter.” He glanced up, and draped an arm over the back of the bench, very incidentally close to her shoulders. The back door slid mostly shut.

She offered him her glass.

Cullen regarded it with deep skepticism. “Was this wine pink before it reached your glass?”

“It’s mostly white wine. I think. Take it so I can hold your hand, Max is still looking.”

“Maker’s breath,” he said, but took it anyway, and she laced her fingers through his. It took a bit of doing. Thick winter gloves, apparently, didn’t make for good hand-holding conditions.

“You can mix wine together, it’s not a crime.”

“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.” He sniffed the glass and set it down on the ground under the bench. “Did it actually taste all right?”

“It tasted…fine. Is Max still being nosy?”

“No, he’s got -- he’s busy with children’s coats.”

Mireille pulled her fingers away experimentally and didn’t get much of anywhere. “I figure we’ve got about three minutes before someone opens the door to interrogate us about something.”

“Two of your…cousins, I assume, keep peeking as if they somehow think I haven’t noticed.” Cullen said, leaning slightly closer. “And I thought you were nosy.”

“Shut up,” Mireille said, slumping against the bench. His free hand brushed against her left shoulder, and he shifted it away, then back, tentatively resting his fingers against her arm. “I’m not that nosy.”

“You are a bit,” he said. “I seem to recall you interrogating me for about fifteen minutes about the rules for Settlers of Amaranth.”

“That’s not nosiness, that was because you were paraphrasing too much. You can’t paraphrase the rules when you’re introducing a game.” He scoffed and Mireille squeezed his fingers, rather harder than necessary, but the effect was probably a little muffled by the gloves. “Also, again, shut up. You just built a snow fort in trousers.”

“Believe me, I’m aware.” Cullen shifted, crossed his legs at the ankle. “But you can’t build a tunnel without proper shoring. Or a slide, for that matter.”

Mireille gave him a long look, and to her amusement he glanced down in faint annoyance and added, “Well, you _can’t.”_

She huffed a laugh, which turned into a shiver about halfway through.

“Have you never built a snow fort in your life?” He tapped his boots on the deck, knocking some of the snow off.

“Perhaps obviously, I was an indoor sort of child.”

The door slid open again, and Max called out, “Hot cocoa in the kitchen, Cullen?”

“Please,” he said, glancing back. “And thank you.”

Mireille rolled her head back to glare at her brother. “You didn’t ask me.”

“I know,” Max said, and shut the door again.

She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him. It required quite a lot of effort.

Cullen’s fingers brushed against her shoulder. “Your brother is rather protective of you.”

Mireille pulled back and stared at him. “You _are_ talking about Max, right? Or have you mistaken him for someone else with a functioning sense of -- ”

“Shh -- ” He tugged on her fingers.

“Max is not _protective,_ he’s a tit making excuses for my father like he’s always done and worrying about _reputations -- ”_

“Your brother,” Cullen said, lowering his voice, “came up to me about an hour ago and informed me that I had best have your best interests at heart. That says protective to me.”

Mireille snorted. “I don’t think Max has ever had a protective thought in his life, unless it was about his daughters or his reputation. What -- what else did he take it on himself to _inform_ you of?”

He hesitated, and glanced down into her face, which made her gut twist a little tighter. His nose was bright red with the cold. “Just that you’d had some difficult relationships in the past. Also that I am, apparently, the first -- person you’ve brought home.”

“That’s not even true, I -- ” Wait, no, she _hadn’t_ brought Kira home. That’d been a dinner out somewhere. Fuck. “You’re not…the first _person._ Brynn’s been here plenty of times.”

“I suspect that may not be what he meant,” Cullen said dryly.

It had sounded flat and lame even in her own ears. Mireille sighed. And shivered.

The door slid open again and her cousin Marin called out, “Come tell us about your _wedding plans,_ Mireille. There’s cocoa in it for you, too.” There was a pause as a small child was consulted. “Perran says he’ll save you some of the big guimauves in honor of your hard work on Fort Trevelyan, Cullen.”

Cullen laughed under his breath, and said, “Thank you, we’re coming.” And he pulled Mireille to her feet, nearly taking her glove off in the process, adding in a whisper, “Good luck. I suspect I’ll be taking cocoa with the leader of Fort Trevelyan and be unable to assist you.”

She worked her fingers back into the glove and around his. “I don’t think I need your assistance to lie about wedding plans.”

“Are you certain about that? You didn’t seem very prepared earlier.”

Mireille glared up at him for a moment and whispered, “Stop enjoying this.”

“Don’t worry,” he whispered back, “I’m not.”

She rolled her eyes at his back, but followed him inside anyway, if only because her glove was still stuck between his fingers.

 

* * *

 

 **Cassandra (8:04 PM)**  
Did she like the ring?  
Did you get down on one knee as you are supposed to?  
I can send you a copy of the latest Swords and Shields by email. I am sure it would help you.  
Have you, perhaps, laid out some rules of engagement, as it were?

 **Cullen (8:13 PM)  
**No to all of those things, and also goodbye

 **Cassandra (8:14 PM)**  
But really. Is it going well?

 **Cullen (8:14 PM)**  
About as well as can be expected.  
I’ve been asked four times about Ferelden’s peerage. I didn’t know Ferelden had a peerage

 **Cassandra (8:15 PM)**  
It does, although I’m sorry to say I have heard mostly disparaging jokes about pedigrees in relation to it.  
Have you met resistance? My understanding is that House Trevelyan may be a bit traditionalist, but there have been many marriages outside the peerage before, especially in recent memory.

 **Cullen (8:16 PM)  
**Have you been looking this up?

 **Cassandra (8:16 PM)**  
Not extensively, but I may have done some. Investigation. Out of pure curiosity.  
I do not know Mireille particularly well, but I believe one of her aunts is a member of the Seekers, and I intended to confirm, and I perhaps became a bit too invested in my research

 **Cullen (8:18 PM)  
**Of course you did.

 **Cassandra (8:19 PM)  
**Regardless, I am sure you’ll do fine, as long as you and Mireille do not kill each other first.

 **Cullen (8:22 PM)**  
No promises.  
Does your romance novel say anything about killing each other first?

 **Cassandra (8:22 PM)  
**It has quite a lot to say on the subject of sharing beds, but no.

 **Cullen (8:23 PM)  
**Of course it does. Does it leave out the parts about snoring and being kicked in the shins

 **Cassandra (8:23 PM)  
**I will send you the book. It may be quite helpful for you.

 **Cullen (8:24 PM)**  
You are aware that this remains a favor for a friend  
A large and ill-advised favor  
If I had known how interested the Trevelyans would be in this fake relationship, I would not have agreed to it in the first place

 **Cassandra (8:26 PM)**  
Of course you would, you were challenged to it. Has it ever been like you to swallow your pride?  
Or like Mireille, for that matter? You agreed because you are both too competitive for your own good and because you are _friends._  
Besides, if anyone is stressed, it is likely your fiancee.  
Yes, I know she isn’t really your fiancee.

 **Cullen (8:29 PM)**  
She’s not actually my fiance  
Exactly.  
Why are you spelling fiance with two e’s?

 **Cassandra (8:30 PM)**  
It _is_ Orlesian. I suspect the dwarf knows how to add accents to letters, I will have to ask him.  
You will do fine, Cullen. Please do keep me informed, I am dying to know how things pan out.

 **Cullen (8:31 PM)**  
Very likely it will pan out in quite a lot of shouting, sorry to disappoint.  
Also, my terrible choices should not be this entertaining for you

 **Cassandra (8:31 PM)**  
Then don’t make such delightfully romantic choices and then tell me about them! Best of luck.  
I shall send you the book.

 **Cullen (8:31 PM)  
**Please don’t 

\-- New message: **Cassandra Pentaghast:** Swords and Shields #127 A Careful Contrivance… --

 **Cassandra (8:35 PM)  
**Best of luck!

 

* * *

 

The mattress dipped, then eased back, and a few moments later the bedroom door opened and closed.

Cullen rolled over onto his back when she didn’t return after a few minutes. It was bright tonight, the snow practically glowing through the cracks in the curtains, and the light was good enough he could nearly pick out the details in the seascapes above her bed. It was, by his phone clock, one-sixteen in the morning. He hadn’t managed to sleep yet.

She didn’t come back.

Cullen pushed the niggling desire for a cigarette down and stared at the ceiling, watching the light shift through the curtains of Mireille’s bedroom.

It was pointless to think about things like his own childhood bedroom. Mia had sold the old house when their parents had died. What else could she have done? What had she done with the old pictures and paintings, the shelves of his father’s antique cameras, the little portrait of Andraste his mother had done in grade school or the stag-headed statuette she used to hang up her rings and bracelets? The medals he’d won in fencing club and the shelves of books he couldn’t bring with him to the barracks? He hadn’t asked.

It was, probably, a few years too late to ask.

One twenty-nine. She was still gone. He didn’t know her well enough, and certainly didn’t know her house well enough, to try to find her. Void, she could just be feeling unwell. Or she could be off for a midnight snack. Or just scrolling through her phone in the bathroom. Everyone had to use the bathroom at some point.

Or she might be trying to get some actual time to herself, instead of having to share it with a…well, a friend, but not a particularly close one.

Or she was pouring herself a drink, which, given her mood all day, also made a lot of sense.

This was about the level of insomnia where he’d usually get up and…well, have a cigarette, but he’d really picked the wrong month to quit _that._ It had done an admirable job of dimming the lyrium cravings, at least. The needling anxiety and the recurring faint cough were annoying. But better than the headaches and the endless thirst.

Cullen held up a hand above his face. Just a touch of a tremor. Tolerable. Annoying, but better.

One thirty-four.

He spread his legs out, into the cool spaces in the sheets, and spread out his arms for good measure. She’d tucked the blankets back. There was still a warm hollow where she’d been.

Naturally, this was the moment the door opened and he started nearly out of the bed.

Mireille closed the door quietly before she said, “Is the reason you move around so much in bed because you usually sleep _spread fucking eagle?”_

“Sometimes one has to stretch,” Cullen said, swallowing the last of the shock. And withdrawing to his side of the bed.

She padded back over, and he felt the mattress shift and dip again.

Mireille looked over at him and said, a bit grudgingly, “I -- hope I didn’t wake you.”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

She gave him a long, scrutinizing look. Her eyes were black in the low light, half-lidded, her thick brows so deeply furrowed that a line appeared at the bridge of her nose.

“Are you all right?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

“Are _you?”_

Cullen blinked.

“I mean, you generally look like you haven’t slept in ten years,” Mireille continued, rolling onto her side to face him. “But given the circumstances I’m starting to suspect that’s actually true.”

“I’m – prone to insomnia, that’s all.” He knitted his fingers together, resting on his ribs. “You’ve deflected the question, by the way.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

Cullen turned his head a little more fully to look at her, and she met his gaze with a frown and held it. He sighed. “Because you’re still awake and you’ve been angry all day? More than usual, I mean. As far as I can tell that is rather your default state.”

Mireille huffed and rolled away, onto her back. “I had to take a -- I take pain medication sometimes for my -- arm. I have to take it with food, sometimes I forget until it’s late. That’s all.”

He studied her for a moment and said, more softly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“Please,” she said, derisively, still staring at the ceiling. “It’s just fucking ibuprofen. It’s not something you need to get piteous about.”

“That’s…that’s not the right way to use that word.”

Mireille shot a sleepy glare at him. “What would you know? You haven’t slept in ten years.”

“I know how to use the word piteous, though.”

He could practically hear her teeth grinding. “This was a _terrible_ idea.”

“I think we’re in agreement on that.”

She shifted to face him again, scowling, and said, “Why did I think you could fake a relationship?”

“Why did you think _you_ could?” he asked, trying to cock his head against the pillow and not really succeeding. “You’ve been doing a spectacularly bad job of it thus far.”

“And you’re doing any better, Ser I Shall Sit Here And Make Terrible Jokes?” Mireille wrinkled her nose again, her lip curling. “At least you’re having fun, even if it’s at my expense.”

“You told your great-aunt that I am terrible at card games.”

“That’s not making fun of you, that’s _true.”_

“You’ve never played a card game with me.”

“I have seen how you bet, however.”

Cullen gave her a look. She returned it, raised her eyebrows in challenge.

“You,” he said, “are rather obnoxious.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t intended to be a compliment.”

“Yes, well, I don’t _have_ to be polite to you, because you don’t pay my tuition.”

He shifted, tapping his thumbs against each other. “Is that the only reason you’re here?”

“I,” Mireille said, and frowned, her gaze drifting to the side as she thought. She drew in a breath and blew it out again. “I don’t know. It’s complicated, there’s a lot of reasons. That’s certainly one of them. I might as well make sure the money of House Trevelyan goes to good use. Why are _you_ here instead of with your -- ”

He saw her face fall as she remembered, and her fingers flexed against the mattress, her eyes dropping.

“It’s not something you need to get piteous about,” Cullen said, and she snapped up a glare toward him for a half second. “Really. It was some time ago.”

She stayed quiet for a moment and then said, “What about your sisters?”

“I feel like you might be deflecting the question again.”

“That’s you doing the deflecting, Rutherford.”

There was that note of challenge in her expression again, her eyes black and bottomless and fixed on him, six inches or so from his face, and it was -- his cheeks felt warm and he wasn’t entirely sure he understood why. The slight increase in adrenaline that came with an argument, maybe, some anomalous response to frustration and disagreement --

Mireille tilted her head in question and into the pillow, rumpling her curls against it. He said, much too late, “We just aren’t as close as we used to be.”

For a second it seemed like she wouldn’t be satisfied with that, but then she stifled a yawn into her hand. “Fine, fair enough.”

“I thought you’d -- ” Cullen stopped himself this time, and then continued, flatly, “I thought you’d protest that answer.”

“I probably will later. When I’m less tired.” She ran her hand through her hair, raking it off her forehead. “You know, there’s -- I’m pretty sure Kelynen keeps some melatonin around, and there’s probably a couple of other sleep aids in the house.” He blinked at her, and she shrugged one shoulder. “If you like.”

“I…That’s all right. Not much helps it, but thank you. You being concerned about me is very disarming,” he added.

Mireille wrinkled her nose and rolled onto her back. “Consider it self-serving if you like. If you’re asleep maybe you’ll stop kicking me.” Her shoulder was so close to his that her shirtsleeve brushed against him, and then she rolled onto her right side and away from him.

After a little while, she began to snore.

Cullen shifted onto his side, rolled away from her, and thought very hard about sheep and dogs and counting sheep and dogs, and not at all about dark eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know what's weirdly hard is writing an au with your character's family when you the writer are the oldest child and she is not. i did not realize how much being the oldest fucks over my perception of family dynamics, haha. sorry to all you youngest/middle kids out there if i end up writing her like an oldest child by accident.
> 
> next chapter SOON HOPEFULLY because i'm EXTREMELY EXCITED ABOUT IT. you can still find me as sirinial on tumblr and pillowfort in the meantime.

**Author's Note:**

> i have no excuse, i was handed this idea by a friend and it's too powerful and too compelling so i'm running with it as far as it'll take me!! anything to break down the writer's block at this point really. it's marked mature only because it might get spicy later and because i want to use the word fuck a lot, but tbh this is probably the fluffiest, softest, flirty-bickering-est thing i'm ever going to write in my life, so you've been warned. 
> 
> like usual i'm on [tumblr](https://sirinial.tumblr.com), and now i'm on [pillowfort](https://pillowfort.io/sirinial) as well.


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